Down Where the Dream Creature Dwells
by kcatty
Summary: A young Librarian sets another creature loose in the Clayr's Glacier, but this one is more powerful, and its goals less straightfoward, than the Stilken of Lirael's youth... / Written for thedisreputableblogger's fic week challenge / Title from Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "The Paradox"
1. Fear

The Glacier of the Clayr, usually full of busy blonde–haired women and children, was empty. They all stood in the Great Hall, gathered together by the Nine Day Watch; the only Clayr absent were the ones who guarded the path to the Observatory.

The hall was silent.

Tori looked over the teeming mass of blue–robed children, who grouped together out of fear and comfort. A few whispered, only to be shushed by the presiding Guardian, Kirrith. The older Clayr kept trying to give her other tasks, let another, more lenient woman take on the role of looking after the orphaned children, but Kirrith seemed to be the only one who could keep the peace in the Hall of Youth.

Kirrith had only talked to Tori once that she could remember, when she was nine and accidentally broke the mirror in the Hall of Youth. Her friend Alis, who'd lost her mother to a sweating sickness a few weeks before, had been scared of the other orphans and of sharing a bathroom with them, so Tori snuck some paint from the studios and painted a border around the mirror, Alis and her mother's initials intertwined and charter marks for warmth and comfort on the corners.

It wasn't her fault she'd accidentally painted a mark for "fracture" instead of "love"; nor did she understand that charter marks were not to be used for decoration. Come to think of it, she still didn't agree with that particular rule. Among others.

Tori's mother had bargained Kirrith down from working in the Infirmary to double dish duty in the Middle Refectory for two weeks, while Tori cowered behind her mother, clutching her flowing white robes and crying honest, terrified tears. Kirrith, apparently, could have that effect on other Clayr when she was angry.

Her mother stood next to her now, but she brushed her younger daughter away whenever she tried to take hold of her arm. She wouldn't even look at her.

Tori would have rathered to stand with the children, or the younger Clayr with the Sight, one blonde–haired head among hundreds of others. She wasn't that tall, either, she could've been anonymous, completely unseen–

Too late to think about that now. She'd made her mistake, now she had to live with it. If only the Nine Day Watch had foreseen it.

She'd only had her Awakening three weeks previously.

The members of the Nine Day Watch stood above Tori and her mother on the dais, grouped together and led by the twins Sanar and Ryelle, who unsurprisingly were the watch's Voice. They were talking, whispering about the Library and the Abhorsen, and the Wallmakers. Tori couldn't remember what the Wallmakers were, but it sounded serious.

Tori closed her eyes and thought about whatever punishment would be inflicted on her. Her mind wandered from the tame, boring extra kitchen duty to the horrible: thrown off the glacier; banished to the North like some whispered had happened to other Clayr; sent south to Ancelstierre where the Charter didn't exist and the Sight drove Clayr insane; forced to dig her own grave and dumped down into it, cold ground, tight walls contracting and falling down on her and the murmuring of the other dead Clayr and she didn't –

The voices roared in her head, the laughter and worries and shouting and all the Clayr, they were too loud and too close and the walls were coming in and Tori couldn't see, she couldn't think. She clapped her hands over her ears and shook, get the noise gone, make it leave, tears streaming down her face, go, go _go __**go**_ –

She felt hands. Hands, on her arms, burning, prickling on the skin. Voices, her mother's voice, _Tori stop it_, Tori I'm serious, _Tori are you all right_, _Tori Tori Tori_…

She tore herself away from the hand. She had to stay awake, she had to calm down. She forced her eyes open, hot tears and pain closing them again, and again and again. Stay awake, stop shaking, stop it. Too much light, noise, too close to her.

Light–haired women massed around her, she was on the floor now, head pressed into the ground, no she wanted them gone. She took her hands away from her ears, push them away, but the noise roared, all the voices in her head and she couldn't hear herself think and –

_Tori what's going on_, _Tori what do you need_, _Tori drink this water_.

The light blared and the noise boomed and Tori felt more hands on her arms, stronger than her mothers. She tried to push them away but they held, dragged her out of the circle of Clayr and through the crowd she could barely see. She was still shaking but not as much, and one hand left, pushed open a door and pulled her through.

Darkness. It was dark, and quiet and cool.

Tori opened her eyes.

It was pitch dark, the room. It was quiet, too, even though she could hear the rest of the Clayr outside, undoubtedly talking about her. She felt herself relax, stopped shaking and sat down on the floor. Her mind unclenched, uncoiled from the panic. She could feel the tears on her cheeks, though she wasn't crying anymore.

The realization of what she'd done hit her, knocked her breath out. She buried her head in her hands and sobbed.


	2. Travel

The message came to them at the Abhorsen's House. They'd just sat down for an early supper, at Mogget's insistence though he refused to eat with them, when a sending came into the hall bearing a scroll from a messenger bird. Lirael had brushed it off at first but it kept coming back with the paper, and Mogget eventually padded into the dining hall and remarked, "You'll want to read the message. It's from your aunt."

The cat–shaped Bright Shiner wove between human legs before finding an empty chair to sit on, as was his habit, and groomed himself with his tongue. "Something about a monster in the library," he added between licks.

Lirael looked up from the scroll. "The seal isn't broken, you can't possibly know–"

"You'll want to take the idiot with you," the cat replied. He leapt down from the chair and walked toward the door. "This one is particularly difficult to deal with," he added. "Sameth might be useful too." And without another word, he turned back around and left the hall.

The idiot, Nicholas Sayre, who was being kept under the supervision of the Abhorsen for the time being, swallowed his food hastily and pointed at the paper with his fork. "What does it say?"

Lirael looked down at the scroll in her hand, surprised to see that she'd already broken the seal and rolled it out. She scanned the first few lines, made a double take, and read them again. Aunt Kirrith was not one to mince words.

Lirael wouldn't have believed what her aunt had written, if not that she'd once done almost the exact same thing.

She cleared her throat. "A librarian accidentally let some kind of free magic creature loose in the lower levels of the library. She escaped, but it killed three others before she raised the alarm. They've sealed off the library but they think it might have escaped anyway."

"Do they know what it is?" Sabriel asked. She sat at the head of the table, in the high–backed chair that Lirael was supposed to sit in when her sister was not present – not that she'd been bold enough to do so yet.

"They don't," the Abhorsen–in–Waiting replied. "They keep a lot of creatures bound in special chambers. Their access is restricted to only the highest–ranking librarians." She dipped her head but quickly drew herself up again. "I released a Stilken in the library when I was fourteen. Things like this happen."

"But you said only the top librarians had access–"

"Access is provided by a bracelet with seven levels of charter marks, and only certain marks will open certain doors. I activated almost all the marks in less than six months."

Sabriel frowned. "I never heard of a Stilken being set loose."

"I confined it in another chamber and bound it anew. It took a while, and I had…help, but I did it without raising any alarms." Lirael felt surprisingly proud of herself, telling her august half–sister of her first success.

"Help…do you mean Kibeth?"

"The Dog, yes." Lirael had explained to the Abhorsen about her friend, whom she'd created accidentally from a statuette that she'd "found" in the Clayr library. Sabriel had encouraged her to try to record the spells that she'd used, but Lirael hadn't yet gotten around to it. She'd never really gotten used to the idea that the Disreputable Dog was Kibeth, or at least a remnant that one of the Seven.

Lirael kept the dog statue that the Dog had left behind in her room in the Abhorsen's House; she didn't frequent the place, but it felt to her the safest and most comforting place to keep it. Sometimes she talked to it too, if she was particularly stressed or worried.

She had a feeling she'd be talking to the statue after returning from the Clayr's Glacier.

"I can handle this if you'd prefer not to go," the Abhorsen said. She'd observed the worried expression that had come over her sister's face.

Lirael shook her head. "I'll go. You've been putting out fires all through the West since we reinterred the hemispheres, and I'm well acquainted with the Glacier. I'm better at identifying free magic creatures, too," she added.

Her sister still looked unconvinced, so Lirael added further, "I can also visit my aunts and cousins while I'm there."

Sabriel yielded. "Sam will want to come. He's been interested in the water and ventilation systems of the Glacier since he learned about them."

"How extensive is the library?" Nick asked. Lirael felt a stab of admiration, followed quickly by jealousy. With the still–sometimes–pungent Free Magic flowing through his veins, he was immune from the ill effects that some books had on their readers.

Even the Abhorsen were not exempt from those spells, as she'd learned one day when consulting a newly–discovered page in _The Book of the Dead_. She'd rushed off to find relief from the nausea only to return and find Nick taking notes of the page.

"Very large, but you'll need a guide to navigate it."

Nick grinned. "After you get rid of this creature you should give me a tour."

Thoughts jumbled in Lirael's head – _why did Nick keep doing that_ – and her stomach knotted up in worry, but she refused to let it show. Nick must have noticed a change in her expression though, because he added, "The cat said I should come. Do you have any idea why?"

Lirael shook her head, glad of the change of topic. "Not at the moment." She turned back to Sabriel. "I'm sorry we'll be leaving you alone in the house."

But Sabriel brushed her off. "Ellimere returns in a few days from Ancelstierre. Don't worry about me."

Thus ended their discussion, and their supper. Sabriel directed the sendings to prepare a Paperwing for the travelers, while they themselves sent a messenger hawk to Belisaere for Sam. Lirael had meant to write the message herself, but she found herself caught up in her own thoughts, and Nick had gone ahead and taken care of it himself.

They climbed into the Paperwing and Sabriel handed their bags up to them. "Safe travels," she said to her sister. "Send me a message hawk if you need my help," she added.

Lirael nodded wordlessly and watched her sister descend back down the steps of the platform. Nick tapped her shoulder from behind her, a signal that he was ready. With one last deep breath, Lirael began to whistle.

* * *

><p>They had flown for two hours before Lirael remembered a question she had meant to ask Nick earlier. She took one hand off the controls and turned to the side of the cockpit, weaving the marks for cancelling the loud wind with her other hand as she went. Even with the spells, though, it was still very loud in the Paperwing.<p>

Nick, who was engrossed in one of the books he'd borrowed from the Abhorsen's library – some journal by a pseudo–scientific necromancer – didn't notice the activity. Lirael had to tap him on the knee a couple times to get his attention.

"Why don't you mind that Mogget calls you 'idiot'?" she shouted.

Nick digested her question, and shouted back a moment later, "Well I was quite an idiot – traveling across the border alone, digging up the hemispheres, setting Orannis loose – those sorts of things."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean he should call you that!"

Nick shrugged. "I call him 'cat'. I suppose that's enough of a come–back. I don't think he likes it very much – or maybe he just doesn't like me."

Lirael nodded in agreement – Mogget did not often say favorable things about Nick Sayre – and turned back around. Nick tapped her shoulder, though, to get her attention again.

"What's the Glacier like?" he asked. He hadn't shouted, which was curious. Lirael turned back around and saw him etching Charter marks on top of her already–cast ones. Almost immediately the noise level in the cockpit plummeted.

Nick was funny like that: he seemed disinterested in learning Charter marks – and indeed, the Charter didn't oft cooperate with his spell–casting – but his magic, when harnessed correctly, was incredibly strong and blunt. A simply–cast series of Charter marks by his hand could increase the strength of an enchantment tenfold – but only if he desired it too.

"Well, it's, um, it's a glacier," she replied. She didn't know to describe it to someone who had never seen it.

"So there are rooms carved in the ice? Does the cold somehow assist the Sight? Do you bathe in cold water too or is there some sort of heating system? Sam's mom – your sister, er, I mean – said there was some sort of plumbing apparatus? How does that work?" Nick threw questions at Lirael too quickly. Sam had said this was his habit, but she'd never been on the receiving end of it before.

"Slow down! The Glacier sits between two mountains, and some the rooms are carved into the rock below. Most of the permanent rooms are rock. Others are carved into the Glacier, but the ice shifts constantly and we have to recreate them."

"So there's heating and plumbing systems…but only for the rooms set into the rock?" he asked.

"Yes. There are other ways of delivering water to the Glacier rooms, and they're actually warmer than you'd expect."

Lirael looked down to check on their progress, and was surprised to see Qyrre below them. They were making very good time; the first time she'd flown to Qyrre it had taken her more than three hours.

"The Clayr see things, right? But that can't be all they do, sit around and have visions all day," Nick added, thinking. He'd met the two Clayr representatives of the court in Belisaere, but only briefly, and they had put him off with their distant demeanor. They were homesick, Lirael had supposed, and not used to Ancelstierrans. They'd also undoubtedly Seen him raising the hemispheres, a black mark if there ever was one.

"There's a small group that forms the Nine–Day Watch," she replied, "and they switch out after their session is complete. They appoint someone every session to be the Voice of the Clayr – that's who'll be leading them when we get there."

"That sounds simple enough."

"Sometimes they summon larger groups of Clayr if they have trouble focusing their Sight," Lirael said, and added, "They had to do that to See you."

"And when they're not doing vision stuff…there's the library, probably a dining hall…" Nick mused, ignoring the mention of his misadventures the year previously.

"The Infirmary, the Rangers, the Art Studios, the Pipe Workers, the Mages, the Teachers," she listed them. "There are lots of jobs to do. The Art Studios in particular trade with the merchants who visit the Glacier."

Nick nodded and returned to his book. This was also a common habit of his – sudden uncontained interest that only sustained itself for a few minutes. If he could muster enough interest he could finish a project in a few days, but his room in the palace was littered with books half–annotated, lists of people to interview and accounts to track down, drawings created and discarded at a whim.

Lirael sighed and turned back to the control panel. She adjusted their direction a little to the east and settled back into a nap. If something went wrong, Nick would wake her up.


	3. Learning

His name was Tomer, the man who'd pulled Tori away from her mother and the Nine–Day–Watch and found an empty room off the Great Hall for her to stay in; she couldn't remember what he did in the Glacier. He hadn't asked her what had happened, and for that alone Tori was grateful.

Tomer stayed with her while she cried, occasionally coughing or shuffling his feet so that she'd remember he was there. After a few minutes he left, and returned with a cup of water for Tori to drink.

"I didn't mean to–" she blubbered, "It was an accident, I didn't – I didn't–" She hiccupped and began to cry again, new tears streaming down her face as if they'd been dammed up.

"Shh, relax," he said, and pushed the cup into her hands. He'd flung his hand up as he entered the room, sending little balls of light flying to the edges of the room so that they could see without leaving the door open. She took the cup with both her hands and took a deep swig. She hiccupped again, forced the water down her throat and started to cry again.

"It's all right, you don't have to explain," he said. He patted Tori's back as she cried, but otherwise sat awkwardly next to her until her hiccupping subsided, and she could speak again.

She realized pretty quickly while she calmed down that there was yelling outside – her mother, to be exact. Tori leaned against the wall, taking sips from the never–ending cup, and listened to her mother shout at the Nine–Day Watch – this was their fault, they should have Seen this happen, but instead they were too preoccupied trying to See the Abhorsen–in–Waiting, when everyone knew she was un–Seeable and not a Clayr and –

The door opened a crack and one of the younger Clayr slipped in – Haretha, her odd name due to her father's insistence, or so Tori's friends claimed. She closed the door behind her.

"Tori," she said, "Can you tell me what happened?"

Tori started to look up at the woman and struggled to find the words; Tomer, though, spoke before she could.

"She had a fear incident," he said. Haretha frowned, and he added, "I gave it the name. She thought of something she was scared of, and it overwhelmed her mind."

"We all have fears," Haretha said. "I'm scared of falling off the Glacier, but thinking about it won't make me act like some Free Magic creature on a rampage."

_Free Magic creature on a rampage, oh no no no no _–

"It doesn't happen to everyone," Tomer replied, interrupting Tori's spiral. "I haven't figured out yet why it only happens to some people, but it, when it happens it seems to only get worse, but there are some treatments I've developed–"

"In any case, Junior Healer, I need to know if this – this 'fear incident' – will happen again."

Tomer shrugged. "Maybe. It might have happened before." He turned back to Tori, who had returned to staring into the cup. "_Has_ it happened before?"

Tori began to shake her head, but changed it halfway to a nod. "I think so," she said slowly; her voice was hoarse, and it hurt to speak. "I locked myself in my closet and it stopped."

"When was this?"

"The day – um, the night before my Awakening."

"Two incidents in three weeks," Tomer muttered.

"Is that significant?" asked Haretha.

"Well, uh, no, but any information is helpful–"

"Then it won't happen again soon?"

"No – well, uh, probably not," Tomer stuttered, "But they're hard to predict and, well, sometimes they can last for an hour, but it appears that Tori's calmed down sufficiently–"

"It won't happen again soon," Haretha summarized. "She can explain what happened?"

Tomer stood up. "She needs rest and calm. Reliving the experience so soon after will make it worse – I'm betting this is what set this incident off –"

"Tomer, Tori, we'll worry about that later. We need to know what happened."

Tori finally looked up fully at Haretha. "I – I don't know if I can–"

Haretha smiled thinly, a watery smile that didn't inspire confidence in Tori at all. "You'll do just fine," she said.

Tori didn't agree, but she let Tomer help her up anyway. "All right." She brushed off her Librarian's waistcoat and took Haretha's hand.

The first thing Tori noticed was that her mother was being held back from her daughter by two members of the Nine–Day Watch. She wasn't trying to push past them – though Tori got the feeling she had been before – but none of them appeared particularly happy.

The other members of the Nine–Day Watch stood around the door; Tori could see other Clayr, mostly blue–clad children, peering from behind them. Less than a month ago Tori was one of them, but that comforting reminder didn't make the shame and anger that rose in her mind any less present.

"Tori went through something called a fear event," Haretha told the gathered group. ("Incident," Tomer muttered.) "She needs to be looked after by a Healer, but for now she should be able to explain what happened."

"The Abhorsen will arrive by the morning," Sanar – or Ryelle, right now she didn't really care – announced with that glazed–over look that Tori hadn't understood until she had her first vision.

With that, the Nine–Day Watch gathered around Haretha, Tomer and Tori, and it was agreed that Tori would stay in the Infirmary – currently located in two rooms off the Great Hall – until the Abhorsen arrived. Tomer, Haretha and Tori's mother stayed with her.

* * *

><p>The Abhorsen arrived by mid–morning. The Mages, who were in charge of all lighting in the Glacier, had adjusted the lights in the Great Hall so that they would mimic the sun's path through the day; the Mages had also created the temporary, cushioned ground and the feeling of blankets that had let most of the Clayr, especially the children, fall asleep together in the Great Hall the last night.<p>

Tori had refused to sleep, but at her mother's insistence Tomer had cast Charter marks for sleep and dreamlessness over her. Still, she awoke with a bad taste in her mouth and a knot in her stomach, only slightly lessened by the hot tea Tomer handed her with her breakfast bread.

The Voice announced not long after Tori awoke that the Abhorsen had arrived, and two members of the Watch escorted Tori back to the dais to wait.

The main doors, carved with scenes from the creation of the Five Great Charters and the history of the Clayr, swung open with dramatic slowness. They never opened quickly, but it occurred to Tori that the marks on the door understood the dire circumstances, and acted accordingly.

Three figures stood in the doorway, shadowed by the bright light outside in the hallway. According to an elder in the Watch, who leaned over to whisper to her colleague, the Mages had raised the lights to the brightest level so that the guards wouldn't be ambushed by the creature. Another Clayr nearby, though, whispered that the creature was invisible; a third that it created its own dark cloud; another that it could cut through the gethre that the Rangers wore; and another, and another and another, till Tori decided to stop listening.

The visitors' features became visible as they walked further into the hall: Three young adults, a woman flanked by two men. The woman shared her dark hair with the man to her left, and light skin with the man to her right, marking her as a member of the Abhorsen line.

Tori thought she looked too young to be the Abhorsen Sabriel, who'd been Queen for more than twenty years.

"Lirael," Kirrith said, surprised.

_Lirael, daughter of Arielle_. The Clayr who never received the Sight, the woman who never left the library, the one who'd left the Glacier mysteriously almost a year ago and never returned. The dark–haired, pale–skinned woman who never fit in, never talked, never smiled.

She was smiling now, an easy, wide smile that only became wider. She quickened her pace, walked down the raised aisle to the dais and stepped down to embrace her aunt.

That was right, Tori remembered. Kirrith was Lirael's aunt.

Lirael and Kirrith withdrew from their embrace, and the Abhorsen–in–Waiting beckoned to the two men to come forward, who'd been standing awkwardly by on the dais.

"Aunt, this is Prince Sameth, the Wallmaker" Tori heard Lirael say. "And this is Nick Sayre."

The Guardian of the Young gave a firm handshake to the former and a curt nod to the latter. She moved aside to let the Voice come forward.

"Sanar, Ryelle," the Abhorsen–in–Waiting said, and hugged each in turn. She looked around at the mass of Clayr and added, "How about we move this to a smaller room."

"An excellent idea," one of the twins said.

"It's egg–shaped," the blond man – Nick Sayre, why did his name sound familiar – said, randomly. He turned to Lirael. "You never said it was egg–shaped. I thought they'd all be rectangular."

Tori looked around and realized he was talking about the Great Hall.

All of the Nine–Day Watch turned to him. "Nicholas Sayre," one said.

"Nephew of the Chief Minister of Ancelstierre," another added.

A third said, "Attempted to raise the Ninth Bright Shiner."

"Received a late baptism in the Charter."

"Attacked by a Hrule at the Wall."

"Under the custody of the Abhorsen–"

Lirael ended the chain of Sighted statements. "All right, that's enough," she said. She glanced back at Nick Sayre, who, judging from his expression, had clearly been put off by the Watch. Like every Clayr, Tori was accustomed to the group–thinking nature of the Watch, but for the first time she realized that it might seem odd to outsiders.

"Let's get going," said Lirael.

* * *

><p>The Nine–Day Watch was larger, much more intimidating, than Tori had ever appreciated – seven people who, for a whole nine days, joined their Sight and their thoughts together and acted sometimes as one person. All together they were very powerful.<p>

Tori had found the room almost overwhelmingly large last night, when she was alone with Tomer and Haretha; but now, with ten Clayr, an Abhorsen–in–Waiting, a Wallmaker and an Ancelstierran crammed into the same room with her, it didn't seem large at all.

"This is the Librarian?" Lirael asked once they had shut the door, looking at Tori.

"Torethele, daughter of Edishi," the Voice said. "She Awoke three weeks ago."

Lirael raised her eyebrows. "A Librarian, at thirteen?" How did she know – no, that was right, she'd never left the Hall of Youth. She would have remembered Tori, even if Tori never remembered her.

"We had an opening, and a Third Assistant position didn't seem all that dangerous," Haretha explained. She was a Second Assistant, though she wasn't currently wearing her red waistcoat.

She was also tasked by Guardian Kirrith to look after Tori for the time being; Tori had overheard them talk while she was pretending to sleep. She suspected that the Charter marks she liked to draw on her arms, pretending they were tattoos, had cancelled out the effects of Tomer's spell.

"She was barely Awoken, and the Library is still dangerous," the Abhorsen–in–Waiting replied. "She should have stayed with the Teachers, or gone to the Art Studios–"

"I wanted to!" Tori said, almost shouted. She caught herself quickly as everyone turned to look at her, and almost decided to be silent again; but she wanted to set the record straight.

"I wanted to go to the Art Studios," she repeated. "I love art, I love painting and drawing and making murals. And I asked if I could go, and the Chief Artist said I could! But then Guardian Kirrith and my Teacher told me I had to work in the Library, that there weren't any openings in the Art Studios. I tried to tell them I could go to the Studios, but they just said no," she added, mumbling that last bit. She looked to the Abhorsen–in–Waiting, pleading silently. _Please understand, please don't be angry_.

Lirael turned to Haretha. "Who was her Teacher?"

"Adera," replied the young woman. "But she and Kirrith thought it best if–"

"I was asked by her mother," a strong voice in the back interrupted. Adera separated herself from the Watch and walked to the Abhorsen; Tori hadn't realized she was part of the Watch. "Edishi asked me to recommend the Library for her daughter. She said that Torethele wasn't old enough to take on duties in the Studios, and that an Assistant Librarian position would help her learn discipline and responsibility."

Everyone else had looked to Teacher Adera while she spoke, but from the moment she had named Edishi, Tori had watched her mother, as her expression faded from objection to resolve. "Mom?" she asked, and heads turned to Edishi.

"Well, I –" she spluttered. "My daughter loves to make art, but she needed to learn that there were more serious things, and I thought a year or two in the Library would teacher the lessons–"

"Your 'lessons' have unleashed a monster onto our Glacier," Tomer said, with a confidence that distracted Tori from her mother's betrayal. "We are all born with our own gifts, our own paths that we must follow to help the world grow and thrive. Tori's gifts led her to the Art Studios, but you refused to let her take her own path."

Tomer let his words, so different from his haltering speech yesterday, hang in the air for a long moment.

"Edishi, you may leave," said the Voice.

"I – she's my daughter, she's just Awoken," Tori's mother objected. Her mother, who'd changed suddenly the day before, her silent anger and disappointment fading into steady, quiet support and nothing but platitudes to comfort her daughter; her mother, who must have realized that this was her fault as much as it was her daughter's. "I have to be here, I may have made a mistake but she's my daughter and she's barely a woman–"

"Edishi," the Abhorsen–in–Waiting said. "Thank you. You may go now."

Tori's mother stared at Lirael, twenty years her younger but now her superior; Lirael, with the serious expression Tori remembered, held the Clayr's eyes. It occurred to Tori that, as Abhorsen–in–Waiting, Lirael had to deal with dead creatures and Free Magic creatures and all those things that scared Tori to death; one Clayr wouldn't have been very frightening to her.

Edishi dipped her head in defeat and left the room without another word.

"Now," Lirael said, and turned back to Tori, "Please tell me what happened."


	4. Time

When Adera and Kirrith had refused to let her work in the Art Studios, Tori had been crushed. She loved the Studios, and besides she'd already asked the Chief of the Studios and she'd told the girl that she'd love for her work there. And they'd all been told that, once a clayr Awoke, they could choose whichever job they wanted. It didn't make any sense that her Teacher and former Guardian wouldn't let her work there.

But after a while she'd given up arguing with them and asked them where she could work. And they said, the Library; Teacher Adera even made a vague reference to having Seen Tori working there.

_["She Saw you in the Library?" Lirael asked, and turned to Adera. "Please explain."_

_Adera look embarrassed, an expression that Tori had never seen on her face before. "Edishi told me she'd had a Vision of Torethele in the Library. She might have," the Teacher said, but didn't look confident at all in that statement._

_"What's the likelihood of that?" Nick Sayre asked. They turned to face him, and he added, "Well, uh, I mean, Edishi's vision might have been a self-fulfilling prophecy. She saw Torethele in the Library because she was going to ask you to put her there, and you put her there because she saw the vision. So Torethele was in the Library because her mom told you about the vision where she was in the Library. It's a circle – the events cause each other. Even the intent of lying would put Torethele in the Library, which could possibly give Edishi a vision of her being in the Library."_

_He caught his breath, and looked around at the mostly-confused Clayr; Sanar and Ryelle looked bemused, and even Prince Sameth and Lirael didn't seem to understand what he'd said._

_"Uh, if that makes any sense," said the Ancelstierran._

_"I understand," Tomer said. "That is one reason why we don't often share our prophecies. Only if we are sure of the future, or if the, uh, 'self-fulfilling prophecy' is seen as greatly beneficial, will we share our Visions with the subjects of them."_

_"Many of our Visions are self-fulfilling," an older Clayr in the Watch said, "But that does not mean we will not share them."_

_"Oh, no, I didn't say it was necessarily a bad thing," said Nick. "I meant that it could be tricky, trying to tell whether your actions will directly create that future you've seen. Maybe she couldn't tell," he shrugged._

_Lirael looked at him peculiarly for a moment, then turned back to Tori. "Please continue," she said.]_

Tori would have chosen anything else but the Library.

Still, she'd gone to Chief Librarian Vancelle's office the next morning, the Chief had approved her, and one of the Assistants gave her her supplies: a whistle (not to be used to play music on); a mouse ("In case something bad happens and no one's nearby to hear the whistle," the Assistant had explained, and the guarantee of the mouse hadn't soothed Tori's alarming reaction to "something bad happens" _at all_); the bracelet with the emeralds (the marks she'd felt inside, though how she activated them she'd have to talk about later); a belt (no, she couldn't decorate it with beads or Charter marks or even paint); and a dagger.

The dagger, surprisingly, had worried Tori the least; the marks on the blade she knew (she'd used them in a few scenic paintings before), and she'd used blades before in art projects. While analyzing the dagger she'd pricked her thumb (it still hurt) and was reprimanded for it.

Another Assistant had given her a tour of the Stacks and main two levels, and showed her where her "office" was (it was more like a closet). She'd quickly determined that the room needed more space and more decorations, and set to work.

(She'd been reprimanded for that too, two days later, when her intent was discovered.)

_["Wait, hold on, they didn't let you decorate your own office?" asked Nick._

_"We prefer our Librarians to focus on the books," Haretha explained. "They are welcome to make their offices more comfortable, but any major changes take time away from their work. It's why we prefer for Librarians to be older," she admitted._

_"I get it. Thanks. Sorry for interrupting," he told Tori.]_

Tori had settled for drawing sketches and patterns and pinning them up, but she'd soon covered the walls and run out of unprompted ideas; so she turned to the Charter marks in the bracelet.

_["Have you heard of folding paper?"_

_"Nick!" protested Lirael._

_"Sorry, I thought she might be interested! It's something that's popular in the western countries, folding paper to make shapes. Mostly animals. I'll find a book," he promised Tori.]_

The bracelet was no piece of beauty – it was thick, heavy and unwieldy, and Tori could have designed a better piece in her sleep, she'd actually sketched out a few ideas – but it did its job well: no prohibited doors were accidentally unlocked with a swipe, and all the doors that she was supposed to have access to unlocked at a touch. It had seven gems, each with its own complex spell which would normally have challenged any rebellious Librarians.

But Tori treated Charter spells as if they were artistic patterns, with each mark a part of a symbol in the pattern. Just as different symbols would combine to create different shapes, different orders of Charter marks would carry out different functions; and Tori often found inspiration in reversing the process, looking up a Charter spell and putting the symbols that she'd assigned to each mark together.

Anyway, the pattern of marks that awoke the first gem flashed habitually on the inside of the bracelet. A slower eye wouldn't have caught it, or been able to make out the stream of marks, but Tori had created with some friends a shorthand system for many of the common Charter marks.

_["Can I see-"_

_"Nick. No."]_

So Tori had jotted them down and discovered the pattern, and honestly it was so easy with the shorthand to figure out the awakening spell for the next gem; and each of the gems built on its lower neighbor so it was not hard at all to awake the next few gems too.

The higher-level gems had completely different spell patterns, though, and Tori hadn't _actually_ been interested in accessing the rooms they unlocked. She hadn't even meant to awake the gems, honestly.

But they were activated, so she began exploring.

_["How many of the gems did you wake?" asked the Abhorsen-in-waiting._

_Tori looked up; she'd leaned against the wall and gradually slid down the wall till she was sitting. "Um, four. Why?"_

_Lirael shared a glance with Nick Sayre. "Go on," she said.]_

On this particular day – it was only yesterday, but it felt so long ago – Tori had finished her morning book load early, and snuck off into the lower spirals to explore. For all she knew, the rumors of the hidden treasures, armor and weapons and beautiful gardens sustained by Charter Magic were true; and she had wanted so much to find them.

The first few doors had been disappointing: one a dusty old records room before the Fall of the Monarchy; another completely empty, though the floor was paved with tightly-placed brick, no mortar, and the air was hot and humid; a third was a huge room, the floor covered in flowers with a large tree in the center. The last was so beautiful that Tori had sat down to sketch it – she still had the pictures in her waistcoat pocket.

_["Can we see them?" asked Sanar._

_Tori unbuttoned her waistcoat and fished the pieces of paper out of her inside pocket. The twins took them and inspected them._

_"How did we not know of this room?" Ryelle said._

_Lirael cleared her throat. "I've, um, I've been there before. I explored the Library a lot too."_

_Haretha protested, "But if Tori couldn't have accessed it without the higher gems-"_

_"She's the Abhorsen-in-Waiting," Prince Sameth interrupted. "She can unlock some hidden Charter marks."_

_"Please tell me you didn't go past the gate," Lirael asked Tori._

_The young Clayr shook her head. "Um, no, I don't remember a gate." Lirael nodded in relief. "Why, what's past there?"_

_Lirael froze for a moment, but recovered herself. "Um, nothing. It looked ominous when I was there, that's all. Please, continue."]_

Other than the beauty of the cavern, though, the room with the flowers wasn't very interesting at all. Tori had felt the itch to explore further even before she'd finished her drawings.

She'd pressed on, going deeper into the spiral of the Library, losing track of time.

_["One last question," Nick said, and faced the chorus of sighs. "I know, I know. How did no one notice she was missing?"_

_The members of the Nine-Day Watch glanced around, looking at each other as if they could answer his question, and eventually settled their gazes on Haretha._

_"She was new," the Second Assistant Librarian explained. "She hadn't been properly introduced to everyone yet, and she's small and quiet and spent her time alone. Like you, Lirael."_

That's not true_, Tori thought. _I'm not that small, I'm not quiet, they just ignored me_. She was about to say as much when the Abhorsen-in-Waiting spoke:_

_"What you're saying is, nobody knew to look for her."_

_Tori could hear the disappointment in Lirael's voice. She knew that she'd worked in the Library for a time, but that hadn't sunk in completely. Lirael had worked alongside these women, maybe even Haretha, for years. She knew them still, and she probably still trusted them as well. And they had let a thirteen-year-old run loose with no one to watch out for her._

_"Yes," Haretha admitted._

_Nick Sayre grimaced and gestured for Tori to continue.]_

The light soft-wooded door, the last door that Tori had consciously opened, had lain at the end of a curved hallway. There were other doors in the hallway, but they were all thick hardwood and had cords with seals draped across the entrances; only the one at the end was unsealed – no cord, no wax seal and no lock to possibly deny Tori permission to enter.

So, of course, she had entered.

It had been another records room, sometime in the distant past. The scrolls of paper stacked on the ledges – really, how old were these records that they were written on _scrolls_? – had disintegrated, leaving the wooden handles they'd been wrapped around to fall down and splinter.

The floor was wooden, that was the first clue that she should have turned back. No, the first clue was the unsealed door; but the wooden floor was the second, and that Tori had ignored it too was just further proof that she should've just been placed in the Art Studios.

The room had been large enough for Tori to lose sight of the door, but not too big to get lost in. The walls were lined with cubby holes for scrolls, with ledges above them. Cracked and broken wooden scroll handles littered the floor.

The far wall was lined with glass, some sort of mural made up of little shards of colored glass arranged in shapes. Tori had heard of them, but she'd never seen one herself. She moved forward, a small Charter-made light in her hand, to inspect the scene, and – and – and –

And fell through the floor.


	5. Pain

The girl froze. She began to breathe heavily and clutched her chest.

"Tori?" Lirael asked, and reached out to touch her arm. Tori recoiled and threw her arms out. She tried to back up against the wall, her legs trying to propel her backwards into the wall.

"No, no no no no-"

The male Healer – his name was Tomer, Lirael had remembered – dropped down and grabbed her shoulders, but she pushed him away. She buried her head in her hands and started to sob, barely breathing normally, shaking her head. "No no _no no_ **_no_**."

"What's going on?" demanded the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. She knelt down next down to Tori but didn't try to touch her again.

"I've seen this before," Nick said. "My sister gets like this, we call it-"

"Fear incidents?" interrupted Tomer.

"No, panic attacks." Nick glanced at the Clayr healer, and back at Tori. "The heart speeds up and the mind gets extremely scared for no reason. Perception is warped, and the subject can't think clearly. It can last from a few minutes to an hour."

Lirael reached out her hand to hover over Tori's forehead. "The heart, you said?"

"Yes, but you could probably just put her to sleep."

Lirael nodded and began to cast the spells. She reached into the Charter and found the marks that would relax the mind, and wove them together. They floated around Tori's head as she heaved, quickly coming inward and settling through her hair onto her skin. She moved her hand downward as the girl fell into unconsciousness, and wove another spell, made up of marks that would do the same but for her heart, that went into her chest. They all watched as the spells began their work, fading into Tori's hair and clothes.

The moment ended when she toppled to the floor, and Tomer had to catch her. Nick quickly replaced Lirael on the girl's other side to inspect her – without either one of them muttering a word, Lirael still hadn't figured out how they did that together – and Haretha and one of the elder Clayr of the Watch, also a Healer, joined him.

Lirael turned to Sanar and Ryelle. "We don't really need to whole Watch here, do we?"

The twins nodded and turned to the rest of the Watch, which had devolved from a circle into a sort of organized mass. They still had their collective thought process, though, because they quickly ambled out of the room and back into the Great Hall; Sanar and Ryelle stayed, and Teacher Adera.

Lirael turned her attention back to Tori. Nick was holding two fingers to her neck and watching the odd contraption that told time on his wrist. "Her heartbeat's normal," he finally said. He lifted her eyelids and peered into her eyes. "Pupils are normal." He raised his hand to her forehead.

"I'd really rather I look after her," the Healer protested.

"She's clammy, but that's better than a fever," finished Nick. He stood up and gestured to Tori. "All yours."

"Are you a Healer?" asked Tomer. He left Tori to the elder Healer and stood up with Haretha.

"No," Nick replied, "But medicine and regular science tend to overlap, so I've sat in on a few surgeries. Not many, but a few," he added.

Of course, nobody understood what he'd said; it had taken him nearly a week to explain properly what "science" was to Lirael, and she still thought it was a bit cockamamie.

"What he means is that if you do enough experiments on something, and observe what happens, you can figure out why it does that," explained Sam. "Why our hearts beat, why objects always fall towards the earth – things like that."

What Sam had just said was much simpler than anything Nick had ever said; Lirael wondered why she hadn't just asked her nephew for an explanation in the first place.

"The Charter can change these things," Haretha said.

"Well, you don't take it into account," Nick replied. "Er, I mean that, magic doesn't exist everywhere, the Charter doesn't, or at least in a way you can use it, but discovering why these things work, well, they work the same everywhere. Even if you can't use – use the Charter, you know what to do."

He looked down at Tori. "Not many Clayr are Mages, right? Well, if you're in a room while Tori's having another attack, and none of you know the right spells, then the data – er, the observations I and others have made with people having these attacks – will help tell you how to calm them down. Without using Charter magic."

The Healer looked up from Tori. "She'll be asleep for the next few hours. She can finish her story then."

"That – that might not work," said Nick. He looked to Tomer for support, and the other young man gave it.

"Fear incidents – panic attacks – they're caused by some specific thought, or action. Tori had experienced one before yesterday, but that one also had a specific cause."

The Voice chimed in: "What was it?"

"Uh, her Awakening. She had an attack a few hours before she Awoke. Anyway, it seems like her experience in the Library – she can't think about it without her mind – panicking, as Nick Sayre called it."

Nick picked up where Tomer ended. "Her mind can't work through what happened, at least not yet. And since she'd already had one attack, it's not surprising that the mind's first reaction to this horrible memory would be another panic attack. You can't keep asking her to recount her memory, because every time it'll probably end up creating another attack," he finished.

"That's not acceptable," Teacher Adera said. She hadn't been one of Lirael's teachers, but she did have a reputation for being rather strict; Lirael wasn't surprised she had gone along with Edishi's idiotic scheme. "We have to know what happened, this thing has killed three of our cousins already! The Abhorsen-in-Waiting can't deal with this creature if we don't-"

"There is another way," said Sam. He looked at Lirael. "I know you haven't done it much, but if you could See the original binding of Orranis then I think you can See what Tori did when the creature was released."

"What?" protested Adera. "Lirael doesn't have the Sight, she's an Abhorsen, not a-"

"Clear the room," Lirael told the twins, more roughly than she'd intended. "Take Tori to the Infirmary room and make arrangements for an escort to the Library. Please," she added, remembering who she was talking to.

The twins nodded and gestured for the remaining Clayr to leave.

After a minute only Sam, Nick and Lirael herself remained in the room.

"So, uh, how are you going to do this?" asked Nick. "Do you need a protective diamond, or anything special when you go?"

She looked at Sam with an obvious, silent question, and he thought for a long moment before nodding his head. When Lirael responded, he clapped Nick on the back and walked to the door.

"Good luck, mate. It's your lucky day."

"Wait, what?" Nick turned around and called after Sam, but he was already gone.

_And then there were two_, Lirael thought.

Nick turned back to her. "What am I doing? You do need a strong diamond, don't you."

She smiled. "No, our bodies will be perfectly safe."

Nick paled. "Death. I've only been there once, and that wasn't for two minutes-"

"I know," said Lirael, trying to ignore the pain that still ripped her heart a little whenever she thought of the Disreputable Dog. She had sent Nick back from Death, confirmed to him that Orannis had been bound and that she wasn't coming back – or so he had said afterwards, in a camp hospital. He didn't have any reason to lie, and she didn't have any reason to doubt him, but she still wasn't sure she believed him.

Maybe she couldn't believe him.

"I don't know how long I'll be in Death. You'll only be there to ensure nothing interrupts the memory I'll be watching."

Nick squared his jaw – that shouldn't have been as appealing as Lirael thought it to be – and nodded. "Okay then. How do we do this?"

Lirael sat down criss-cross. "I'll show you."

* * *

><p>Death was unusually cold.<p>

It was always cold, Death was, and the river always sent chills through Lirael's soul. That's what they travelled with in Death, Sabriel had explained: their souls. But something about the river was particularly ominous today; or perhaps it reflected the chill of the Glacier.

The last time Lirael had use her mirror to See into the past, as Sam said, had been to watch six worlds burn into destruction, and the seventh one almost burn. It had felt like days had passed while she watched, and while she knew that wasn't actually the case she didn't actually know how much time it would take.

Nick appeared a little downriver, and walked towards her; he was careful to keep his feet out of the river, but just barely.

"Just so we're clear," Lirael began, but didn't go on. Nick withdrew his sword from its scabbard and took up a relaxed watch position next to her, towards the First Gate.

He glanced back at Lirael and said, "Let's get this over with."

Lirael nodded and withdrew the Dark Mirror.

She thought of a light-wooded door in the depths of the Library. A small records room filled with crumbling scrolls, and a mural made of glass shards. A small Librarian, new to the Sight and too curious for her own good.

She focused one eye on the Dark Mirror and intoned, "As Abhorsen I bind the Dead and slay evil. A great evil has been released in the Clayr's Glacier and I shall look upon its release. So let it be."

The glass rippled and settled on the scene: Tori in her yellow waistcoat, walking down the twisting path of the Library. She turned down a hallway and walked its length, not noticing that it curved around as if a hook, till she walked towards the spiral path.

But there was one door in her path, the only unblocked door, and the girl opened it.

The vision sped up and settled on Tori again, holding a Charter-made light up, walking towards a wall. Lirael caught the beginning sparkle of the glass mural before the floor gave way and Tori fell.

The memory was being relayed in slower time, as if the mirror knew that Lirael needed to see all the details, but the fall still came as a shock. Tori, for her credit, picked herself up quickly again and looked around.

After a few minutes of attempting to climb her way back up – it was too high, almost twenty feet, and the walls were made of smooth rock – Tori had rested on the ground, and apparently decided to walk along the corridor she know lay in until she found the door out.

But she'd gone the wrong way; because of the hooked hallway, she thought that the way towards the main spiral was actually the path deeper into the hallway. She went the wrong way, walking for fifteen minutes before coming upon another door – the door she must have thought was the way out.

Tori opened it confidently, only to find another hallway running perpendicular to the one she'd walked. She recast the Charter light, chose the right path, and walked down it. She encountered two more doors before entering the final, small, chamber.

It had been simple after that: the door, opened too widely, had knocked over a shelf that lay high up on the wall. The books that rested on the shelf fell to the floor, and one book knocked over a corner block that formed a pentagon in the middle of the room. The pentagon caged an amorphous blob – there was no other way to say it – that fell from its suspended state off the ground as soon as the first block was knocked over. It quickly began to form into an animalistic shape, though its features were off and clearly monstrous.

Lirael had to give Tori credit: she was no idiot. She'd immediately turned back, slammed the door and yelled a sealing spell, and ran. But the creature broke through the spell in a matter of seconds, and ran after her.

Tori rounded the corner and into the first hallway, never stopping. But here the vision paused, so that Lirael could notice that the creature ran not after the young Librarian, but further down the second hallway. After a moment, the vision returned to Tori as she ran.

She passed the hole in the ceiling from which she'd fell, and finally the creature caught up with her. Its features were more defined, though still shifting somewhat, and it bounded after Tori on all four limbs. The girl quickly noticed, but she still didn't panic.

In the periphery of her other eye, Lirael noticed Nick shuffle his feet, and she heard him cough. A blobby hand rose from the water in front of Lirael, and Nick swung his sword at it; it retreated, and Nick returned to stand next to Lirael.

Tori encountered another door soon after passing under the hole. She shoved it open, threw it back to stop the creature and ran on; but the creature caught its limb – paw, whatever it was – in the door and forced it back open.

Tori passed through four more doors with much the same process. Finally she was forced to stop at a much larger door, but only long enough to discover that the jewels in her bracelet opened it.

The creature pounced on her while she was barely across the threshold and back, Lirael noted, in the main spiral. It had spun her around in mid-air and pinned her down on her back with its front claws.

Its movements were erratic, as if it couldn't quite keep its body under control, and Tori watched in transfixed horror as it morphed into a different shape – one Lirael knew. It growled, its eyes flashed, and it came in quickly to bare its teeth at Tori.

But something made it change its mind, and it quickly retreated and bounded up the spiral. Tori proceeded to have a minor panic attack, but something – Lirael could feel it even in the memory – something strong and ancient affected the girl, and the attack quickly subsided.

Tori picked herself up and began to walk up the spiral, staggering at first but soon breaking into a run.

Lirael broke off her gaze at the Dark Mirror and closed it.

"You're done?" Nick asked.

"Yes," she replied.

"Do you know what it is?"

"I have no idea."

* * *

><p>They returned the Life quickly, and brushed off the icicles and frost that had formed on their bodies. Sameth had returned with warm drinks and food, somehow provided by the relocated Kitchens.<p>

"So?" he asked. "Do you know what it is?"

"It looked vaguely animalistic," replied Lirael, "But many Free Magic creatures do. It will probably be in a bestiary of sorts."

"But – but the bestiaries are in the Library, right?" asked Nick, who clearly had no desire to deal with magical creatures again that day.

"Yes. But I need to know what it is to defeat it."

Sam sighed. "I'll tell the Guards ready the party," he said.

* * *

><p>It took them three very stressful hours, but finally Lirael and her companions found an entry for the creature.<p>

They'd marched out of the Great Hall to complete silence, an eerie calm that had carried through the whole of the Glacier and into the Library. Lirael had broken the seals of the Library doors – cast by the most skilled Mages and still in place – and entered with the escort and accompanied by Nick and Sam.

They had found the bestiaries easily, but they were so numerous that Lirael had tasked everyone, save two guards for the door, with skimming the volumes. She excluded the ones she knew by heart and the newer tomes, but it still took three hours to find the right entry.

Sam had found it, carefully turning pages in a book that looked too fragile to be still held together. He'd called Lirael over and pointed to the entry, and several drawings that lined the far edge of the page.

As she read the entry it became clearer to Lirael that this was the creature that Tori had unleashed; but her heart also sunk as she read it. They could bind the creature again, but it would be unbelievably hard and tricky to pull off.


	6. Seasons pt 1

Tori awoke from a dreamless sleep, the best sleep she'd had since her Awakening, to find the Abhorsen-in-Waiting sitting next to her bed. She held a book in her hands, an old volume with brittle pages that didn't bend when Lirael turned them; the covers were all but eaten through and the binding was unraveling.

The book had drawings of the monster, one after another at the far edge of the page that Lirael displayed. There as animal, and after as a human, and after that a –

Tori had to turn her head away; she didn't want to look at it, because looking at it would make her think of falling through the floor, and the tunnel, and the – the – the –

She shook her head to lose the thoughts. _Think of better things_, she told herself. Folding paper and glass murals and that time she used the wrong Charter mark and coated the steps to the Lower Refectory in ice. The tours of the Glacier she'd taken with her year gathering, the same day each year like clockwork. That time she and Alis had to work in the Refectory kitchens for a week because her mother said that –

Her mother.

Lirael finally noticed at Tori was awake. "How did you sleep?" she asked.

"Well, I guess," Tori responded. "What time is it? Can I get something to eat?"

The young woman nodded to someone on the other side of the cot, who left the room before Tori could get a good look at them. "It's the afternoon. You were asleep for six hours."

It was only then that Tori noticed the bags under her eyes, and it occurred to her that the Abhorsen-in-Waiting probably had barely slept since receiving the message about the monster from the Clayr. She'd most likely flown all night to get to the Glacier, and then – well, Tori didn't know what Lirael had done in those six hours that she'd been asleep, but it looked like it was weighing her down.

"Torethele," the Abhorsen-in-Waiting began. "Tori," she corrected. "I Saw what happened in the Library. After the floor collapsed."

"But how? You're not – you don't have the Sight, and besides the Sight can only See futures, not pasts…"

Lirael nodded. "My father was the Abhorsen Terciel, and my mother was Arielle of the Clayr. Because the two bloodlines converge in me, I am something called a Remembrancer. I can See into the past, but only while in Death."

"Death…" repeated Tori, and she shuddered. Death was a place, somewhere you could go, but all she'd heard of it were rumors and she had no idea what it was like. She contemplated asking Lirael about it, what it looked like, but decided quickly against it; it was probably cold and lifeless

"I went into Death after you fell asleep and Saw what happened, so you don't have to recount it again. Nor will I tell you what I saw. You've had enough panic attacks this week."

Tori closed her eyes in relief.

"After Seeing the rest of your account, I looked through the bestiaries in the Library to find out what creature it was–"

"But that's where it is!" protested Tori.

"We had half the Rangers as escorts," she replied. "It took as a while to find the creature, but we did." She lifted up the book in her hands, the old bestiary, to show Tori the book.

"What is it?"

"It's called a Wraedheren," she said. "And you have to help us bind it anew."

* * *

><p>"It's part of the binding spell," Lirael explained to the Nine-Day Watch in a side room, where the rest of the Clayr couldn't hear what they planned. "Since Tori released the Wraedheren, she has to be the one to bind it anew."<p>

"She's still only a girl," Kirrith protested; she was there too, with Haretha, the Chief Healer (her name was Linead) and Edishi, Tori's mother. "Lirael, there's another way and you know it."

"No, Aunt, there isn't. It's only been bound twice before, according to the bestiary, and both times the one who released it was the only one who could fix the damage. If there was another way, I would take it."

"You will not involve my daughter in this," Edishi declared.

Lirael rounded on the younger Clayr. "_You_ involved Tori when you tricked Adera and Kirrith into placing her in the Library. No thirteen year-old should have been assigned a permanent post, least of all in the Library."

"_You_ worked in the Library when you were her age."

Rage uncharacteristically burned in Lirael's heart. "I was older, more mature, and I _asked_ to be placed in the Library."

"I don't believe you!"

Behind her, Sam grabbed Nick to prevent him from barging forward and saying something he'd regret later.

"Edishi, enough," the Voice said together; alone, Sanar said, "The circumstances were different then."

"You coerced your daughter and the women she trusted into following the path you wanted her to take," Ryelle said. "You have relinquished your right to speak for your daughter."

Edishi recoiled, but quickly collected herself. "You're going to get her killed," she muttered as she stormed out of the room, taking whatever optimism about the mission that was left with her.

Fortunately, Edishi's departure also signaled the end to any resistance to Lirael's plan; only later did it occur to her that her appearance –gethre armor with the surcoat of the Abhorsen's keys and the Clayr's stars; shiny black hair done up in a bun; sword hanging from belt, long and heavy and covered in spiraling Charter marks; and the bells, resting in their compartments on the sash, their power underestimated by no one present – played a part in their confidence in her.

The dress of the Clayr, while comfortable, did not at all make Lirael appear confident or mature, and she supposed the Abhorsen's traditional outfit simply fitted her better. It certainly made Lirael feel more confident, but she put that down to a year's training by her sister.

The Nine-Day Watch quickly approved of the plan, with only Kirrith voicing her doubts; but she too eventually placed her faith with her niece. With the Clayr on board with the proposed idea, Lirael only had one more obstacle: Tori herself.

Tori didn't want to do it. It was painfully obvious to all assembled, when she was brought into the room, that she was terrified of returning to the Library to face the creature, but Lirael had been firm in her declaration that the girl had to come.

She had been stoic while Lirael explained the plan to her, only asking two questions: how they would know the right door, and what they would do if she had another panic attack. Lirael had answered the first question easily – "We'll identify the corridor you went down, and go one level lower." – and the second reluctantly – "Unfortunately…we can't do anything except use the right Charter spells to suppress the attack and keep you going."

Tori had taken the second answer surprisingly well, and although it was clear that she didn't want to be involved in it, she understood that she had to be.

* * *

><p>Two hours later, creeping softly along the main spiral of the Library, Lirael began to rethink her decision to confront the Wraedheren so quickly after learning what it was. True, the bestiary had said it would only grow in strength the longer it was out in the world, and true, the seals on the Library were corroding too quickly for Lirael to feel safe, even with her strengthening of the spells. Nick had offered to further enhance the seal, but his magic only corroded it faster.<p>

This rash decision to move against the Wraedheren so quickly had nothing to do with her desire to get far, far away from the Glacier, she told herself. Nothing at all.

A sudden bitter taste rose in Lirael's mouth, but she resisted the urge to spit.

Tori stood on her right; Lirael had suggested her left side would be safer, as they planned to hug the outside wall of the spiral, but the girl had eyed the sword hanging from the Abhorsen-in-Waiting's left and declined.

The first sign of trouble came as they passed the Stacks and into the lower levels. The smell of Free Magic tripled in intensity, and Tori gagged; the Rangers accompanying them were too well-trained to react visibly, but Lirael saw their contorted frowns the same. She herself was accustomed to the smell, having had Nick accompany her nearly everywhere since he'd returned to the Old Kingdom.

Because of his history, and his peculiar combination of Free and Charter Magic, Sabriel had decided that he should be held under the protection – read, custody – of herself or her sister. Nick had to stay with the Abhorsen line at all times; only Sam had permission to break the rule for day trips.

They walked further down the spiral path.

Nick broke the silence: "Do you smell that?"

He startled Lirael nearly senseless, and Tori tripped and almost fell.

"What do you mean?" Lirael asked.

Nick sniffed and waved at the air in front of his face. "It smells like…smoke."

"Magical smoke?" asked Tori.

"No," Lirael said. She could smell it too, and if she squinted she could see the beginnings of it, too. There were no Charter marks, no extra-heavy doses of Free Magic scent, in the air. "Just…smoke."

She had to make a decision. "Rathielle, you and three Rangers, come with me," she ordered the head of the Guards. "Nick, stay back with the rest of the Guards and Tori."

Nick met her eyes. "You think it's spreading?"

Lirael nodded. The last thing she wanted to do was split the group, but she'd read about the many fires that the Library had suffered and she knew how quickly they could grow.

She broke off from the spiral wall and strode forward quickly down the path, the four Rangers walking in pairs behind her. They continued down for about a minute, before the Charter lights along the walls extinguished.

Lirael looked back for a moment and watched the lights behind her extinguish; this was apparently one of the Wraedheren's tactics, darkness. She sent up new Charter lights, but they only lasted moments before flickering out again, so she settled for the spells she and the guards could maintain in the palms of their hands.

They quickly came upon its second habit: fire. It had somehow carved a jagged crack in the path floor, stretching from wall to wall, a foot wide, and ablaze on both sides. Lirael stopped in front of the flaming crack and studied it; the fire was made of Free Magic, but it wasn't too effective a deterrent.

It did, however, confirm Lirael's suspicions that it knew they were there.

"Hanna, Panthen, go back and bring the other group forward."

Lirael studied the fire further while waiting for the others to appear. It seemed to hug the stone, as if it gained its strength from it. The stones were infused with Charter marks, yes, but what held the spiral together was a thin, sheen sheet of Charter spells that flowed through the stones in the whole of the spiral. Lirael wasn't worried about the structural integrity of the path so long as the sheet remained.

"It's Free Magic all right," Nick said behind her. Lirael turned and nodded at the others.

"I'll jump across first. Rathielle and Hanna will follow, then Nick and Tori. Half of the Rangers will stay here, and the other half can follow after Tori."

Hearing no objections, Lirael turned back to the crack, checked the anti-flammability marks on her surcoat, and jumped.

She landed with both feet on the ground – one foot was not a great distance to jump – and gestured for Rathielle and Hanna to follow.

As Hanna jumped, the stones beneath her gave way and she stumbled to a landing on the other side. The crack was now two or three feet at its closest.

Lirael thought on the spot. "Nick, can you pick up Tori?"

On the other side of the flames, Nick looked at the girl appraisingly and reached out his arms. Tori shook her head and looked at Lirael. "I'm too big."

"You can piggy-back," Nick replied. He crouched down with his back facing the girl. "Climb up."

"I don't know how…"

"Wrap your arms around my shoulders and keep your legs relaxed."

Tori complied, and Nick foisted himself up with her on his back. "Easy up on the arms," he gasped, and Tori adjusted her arms, which were pulling on his throat. "See? Easy. All kids like piggy-back rides," he said, grinning, and backed up from the crack.

Nick broke into a run suprisingly easily, considering he had an extra hundred pounds on his back, and he achieved a considerable speed before jumping. Lirael and the Rangers with her backed up to give Nick space to land –

And three feet of stone fell from where they had just stood, the fire roared across the crack and Nick, with his extra weight, landed on the Charter-marked sheet that still spanned the gap.

Lirael's shock wore off within a second, but not soon enough for her to notice that the sheet was fading, almost bending under the weight of the two humans. Or it wasn't the weight, could it possibly be…

"Nick, look out!" she shouted, a moment before the sheet gave way and sent both the young Clayr and the Ancelstierran plummeting.

Lirael and the Rangers stood, stunned; not even the two thumps they heard in quick succession a moment later, the second softer than the first, broke their shock.

"We're okay!" Nick yelled up after a few seconds. "Well, hold on, let me check…yep, I think we're okay!"

The Rangers looked at Lirael. _You're the leader_, she reminded herself. _Be the leader_.

"How – how many floors did you fall, can you tell?" she shouted down.

"Looks like just the one. I might've sprained an ankle but Tori looks okay!"

"We'll be right down!"

"Good!"

Lirael looked back at the Rangers; the group across the crack looked positively spooked, and the two with her didn't seem much calmer, but they still had their resolve, and none of them had run yet.

"Maintain your position," she told the group on the other side. "Rathielle, Hanna, with me."

They ran down the path, making no excuse to tarry; Lirael barely remembered to check ahead of her for other magical traps like the one she suspected had been set over the crack. She sent up Charter lights only for them to extinguish immediately, but she didn't care; anything to test this Free Magic creature's power was well and good.

With only their palm-held lights to guide the way, they literally tripped over Nick – Nick, who was bleeding, unconscious and alone.

The guards immediately began looking for Tori, but Lirael rushed to Nick. She fed Charter marks into him faster than his body could absorb them, and quickly he was roused. "Nick! Where's Tori?"

Nick groaned and propped himself up with an arm. "Something…something hit me from behind. No, pounced, like an animal. A tiger, maybe, or a large dog. Like the Dog. I…" he shook his head, "I don't remember after that."

Lirael's heart sank. The Wraedheren cycled through five shapes, each lasting quicker than the previous, until it reached its most powerful, but also its most vulnerable, the _Voineley_. But if it was already in its Winter shape, the man-beast, that meant that it would soon morph into the _Voineley_, and soon back into the slippery Spring shape.

"But why didn't it take me?" muttered Nick. "I have the Free Magic, and I'm more a threat to it…"

"No use worrying about that," Lirael said. "If it's attacked, that means it's close. She's not here, not anymore," she called to the guards. "The Wraedheren has her." She helped Nick up, noting the rips on his jacket backside. "We need to hurry. I know what it's going to do."

Nicholas Sayre, miraculously healed, led the charge from there.


	7. Seasons pt 2

They completely missed the corridor that Tori had turned down, but the entrance to the lower tunnel was so obvious that the mistake didn't matter.

The door was decorated with small stripes of a repeating motif, scenes from a parade of some sort. Five segments, each with a different monster: a cat-like animal called a Tri-Geda, Lirael recalled; a Hrule, like the one Nick had chased across the Wall and she had returned to the earth; a Parnishak, which looked eerily similar to the Greater Dead creature she and Sabriel had banished together last autumn; the dog-shaped creature that had ambushed Nick and Tori, called the Fierene; and lastly, the shape of the _Voineley_. Lirael shivered at the sight of it, and quickly studied another panel.

Each part of the parade was colored differently – a blue winter, green spring, yellow summer and an orange-red autumn; the colors were faded but some sort of Charter spell maintained the impression of them.

Lirael passed over those marks quickly, though, and focused instead on the marks that created a border around the repeated seasonal scene. Marks for danger, dangerous caution, and more that even she, the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, didn't recognize.

Something told her Sabriel might not be able to identify them either, which was both oddly comforting and chilling.

There were no instructions on how to open the door, and Lirael wasted several minutes throwing what felt like every Charter mark, every spell she knew against it.

"It's the seasons," Nick said, as if he'd just noticed. "Didn't the bestiary say that the Wraed-something changed with the seasons?"

"Yes." Lirael backed up from the wall and stared at it. She hadn't noticed before, but a series of marks lay in a line above the door.

Charter marks symbolized the actions they performed, or the items they were affixed to, but they were rarely used to convey more than basic ideas. Lirael had encountered the use of Charter marks as a language only twice: once in _The Book of the Dead_, and once in _The Book of Remembrance and Forgetting_.

Lirael sounded out the mark names: "Redan – hered – nehlu – henek – anet – canol – berow – raleheren."

"Wraedheren lies here and it cannot be released," Nick guessed. "_Caveat emptor_ – buyer beware," he added, which made no sense to Lirael.

"It's the first spell of a binding."

Nick drew his sword. "Shall we do this?"

Lirael looked back at the Rangers, who stood to attention at her glance. "Stay outside the door. If we need you…" Lirael withdrew a clockwork mouse that she'd picked up in the wreckage of the Library and showed it to the guards. "We'll let you know."

The marks above the door also provided, in a roundabout way, the instructions on how to open it. This was the real use of the marks as a language, to convey instructions that only those smart enough to decipher their hidden meaning.

Lirael cast the spell, a series of marks that instilled confidence and calm on the recipient, and the door opened.

* * *

><p>The first door inside the tunnel was decorated with four Charter marks, the ones that signified the seasons; probably another warning about the Wraedheren. Lirael began to throw Charter marks at it, as before, but the door didn't budge.<p>

"Hold on," said Nick. "You said there were three more doors?"

"Yes…"

Nick stepped forward and cast a single Charter mark, that of spring. It blazed especially bright, like all of Nick's marks did, and faded into the door.

Nothing happened.

Lirael shook her head and stepped forward, but Nick held out his arm and asked, "What did you say the order of the Wraed's shapes was?"

"Tri-Geda, Hrule, Parnishak, Fierene and _Voineley_. The first four correspond to the seasons – apparently if it's out in the world then it changes shapes on the seasons."

"And the Voinlee?"

"_Voineley_. It takes the shape during the solstices."

For some reason, Nick appeared vaguely gruntled, as if she'd confirmed a theory of his. "Give me one more try."

He cast the Charter mark for winter, and a moment later the door groaned open. Nick stepped aside and Lirael stepped through the threshold first.

"See, it's the Wraed's cycle, in reverse," he explained. "You have to prove that you know its different shapes before you can encounter it."

The next door had only three marks carved into it, missing the mark for winter. Nick cast the mark for Autumn, and they continued. The next two doors followed the same system.

The hallway was just as Lirael saw in the Dark Mirror. Large hewn stones on the floor fit together so tightly she could barely feel their edges, and the atmosphere of the tunnel was, as she'd suspected, filled with magic, a strange mix of both the Free and Charter varieties that swirled around Nick and her as if sensing the different magic they held in their bodies.

Lirael looked at the walls around them and noted that they were made of a different stone, smaller and more textured. It looked like the stone that lay the foundations of the Abhorsen's House but darker; she hadn't noticed it in Death because the vision, even only less than two days old, had begun to blur.

They came across the hole in the ceiling soon after the last door; it wasn't as large as Lirael had remembered, just a jagged circular gap with splintered wood scattered underneath. She made a note, exhausted as she was, to remember that Sam would need to rebuild the ceiling, and probably also move the whole records room to be safe.

They reached the door at end of the hallway not five minutes. As it had been when Tori was first there, it was completely unguarded, not even some warning spells so that the normal person would turn back.

"You take the right," Lirael told Nick. "There should be three more doors on your way, and the last one opens up onto the room that held the Wraedheren bound."

"Then, you'll take the left way? But if the Wraed's to the right –"

"I don't know if it's still there. Just – please do it, all right?"

"Okay, okay," muttered Nick, and set out to the right. Lirael drew her sword and headed in the opposite direction.

There had been something written in the bestiary, something about the "different parts" of the Wraedheren and how it multiplied. The last person who had bound the Wraedheren – well, actually only one of the two people who had done it, but she'd mentioned her partner only when necessary – had written as a note that she'd had to "split them up" in order to bind the creature.

She also claimed that the bestiary that she had consulted in order to bind the Wraedheren had written about the splitting process, but that the author's experience in binding the creature had differed from the process described in her bestiary.

None of it made Lirael feel more confident in her decisions, thus far and in the future, but for what felt like the twentieth time today, she pushed her doubts to the back of her mind and pressed on.

The doors, all three of them, were open. As Lirael approached the third door she extinguished her handheld Charter-marked light, and saw that some kind of warm yellow light was coming from inside the chamber.

She carefully stepped forward into the doorway, laying her feet down slowly to mute her footsteps.

The chamber was organized in the same way as its counterpart on the right side of the hallway: a shelf filled with books lined the walls high up, and a pentagon lay in the center, the corners created by stones and connected to each other by glowing, magical lines. The stones each had a single Charter mark carved into them on both sides, Lirael noted, and the lines connecting them glittered with marks.

Inside this pentagon, like the other one, floated a blob.

The Wraedheren, still in its winter Fierene form, stood in front of the pentagon; Tori, unconscious, lay next to it. Lirael could see blood smeared across her face and in her hair, still in a braid, but no other injuries.

Lirael reached into her pocket, withdrew the clockwork mouse and lay it on the ground facing the doorway.

"I must say, I did not expect one of Astarael's get," Lirael heard a voice say. She looked towards the pentagon, and the Wraedheren turned around.

It was human.

Well, its body appeared human – the proportions of the head and limbs were accurate, no poorly-created skins like the Greater Dead were fond of making; the skin and hair were the tones of a Clayr; and the face was that of an older Clayr, one past her childbearing years but not yet elderly. It was no Clayr that Lirael recognized.

The woman – no, the creature – leered and lifted its hands, which were covered in blood. Tori's blood, Lirael realized.

"The girl does not have much magic in her veins. Too little, I thought, so I sought out other humans. But theirs was not right, I discovered."

"Where –" Lirael cleared her throat. "Where are their bodies?"

The creature shrugged, a disturbingly human-like motion. "In the records room above us. I cannot open the doors on this level from the outside, for they require the Charter. I despise the Charter," it hissed, and approached Lirael.

The Abhorsen-in-Waiting raised her sword in warning, and the creature stopped.

"Why wasn't their blood useful?" she asked. _Keep it talking, keep it talking_.

" 'As one of the blood releases a Wraedheren, the same blood must release its mate'," the Wraedheren replied, as if quoting a book.

"That blob is your mate?" Lirael shifted to her left.

The creature shifted to its left to compensate. "It is not a _blob_, it is simply bound by your horrible Charter."

"That's why you didn't chase after To– after the girl when she first released you," Lirael realized. "If it's your mate, you'd want to release it first."

"I've read about the Wraedheren," she continued. "You have many shapes, but I didn't know that you could take the human form."

The creature titled its head, another disconcerting action. "Clearly you did not read enough. This is my _Voineley_."

Lirael was surprised, but it also made some sort of sense. She pushed the information aside for the moment, though, and shifted more towards her left. _Keep it talking_. "I read enough to know that you cannot release your mate, only the person who released you can do that."

"Only the same _blood_," it corrected her. "There are ways around the restriction. I have used them before."

"What would you do, drain the girl of her blood and toss it at one of the stones?"

"With the blood I create the shape of a –" the creature caught itself. "But I will not tell you how it is done, for that is your intention to know."

_Nick, where are you?_ "You said your _Voineley_ is the human shape. Who was the woman you're portraying?" Lirael moved a little more to the left; to the right of the creature, Tori stirred quietly.

The Wraedheren sneered. "This is the form of the last human I killed. She had released me and my mate, and she was the first meal we consumed unbound."

"The only meal, it sounds like. Estellere and her companion must have bound you not long after that."

It sneered. "I can take any form, this is simply the one I desired. But not anymore." It closed its eyes, and its skin rippled. Lirael started forward, but recoiled not a moment later, when the creature finished its transformation.

It had jet-black hair and pale skin, and looked like Sabriel, if she were younger and had a longer face and larger eyes, hair cut longer and two moles on her neck, a scar from Dead creature in Aunden above her right eyebrow –

Lirael realized that she was looking at herself.

"The bestiary said you were a tricky creature, but this is…impressive," she said, more bravely than she felt.

"How do you think we've survived all these years?" the creature boasted. "Humans are almost always too stupid to check their Charter marks, if they have them. After I kill you, I'll –"

"Lirael?" Nick asked from the doorway, and looked between the two human shapes. "What – _Lirael_?"

"Nick, it's me," Lirael said.

"No, Nick, that's the monster," the Wraedheren said.

Nick appeared to make up his mind, and he held his sword up towards the creature. "How are you taking her shape?"

The creature scoffed, and changed back into the Clayr it had killed so long ago. Nick moved to stand next to Lirael.

"How did you know?" she asked him.

"Well, for one, you have Sam's sword," he replied. "And you never call Free Magic creatures 'monsters'."

To the creature's right and Lirael's left, in front of the pentagon, Tori sat up.

"Do you remember the spells?" asked Lirael.

Nick: "Uhh…"

"Nick!"

"Yes, right. Yes, I do. I'm fairly certain I do."

"Keep it occupied."

"Okay."

Nick didn't move.

"Nick, go!"

"Okay!"

Nick charged towards the Wraedheren, and Lirael rushed towards Tori. She picked the girl up quickly and said, "Other side of the room!" Together they moved back behind Nick, who was keeping the creature occupied much more effectively than Lirael had expected. Then again, she remembered, he'd taken to hanging around the Royal Guard in Belisaere in the past few months.

She set Tori down next to her and quickly cast a diamond of protection around them. The thought suddenly struck her – actually, she was surprised that she hadn't thought of it before, nor had anybody else suggested it – that it would have been a very wise idea to have asked for Sabriel to come up and take charge of the bounding of the Wraedheren.

Too late for that, though, and everything else.

"We're going into Death now," Lirael told the girl. "Do as I say. Nick," she called out. "We're going now!"

" 'Kay," he yelled back.

* * *

><p>It took Tori a little while to relax enough to enter Death, what with the glowing diamond that surrounded her and the Abhorsen-in-Waiting, said Abhorsen-in-Waiting suddenly sprouting frost and icicles everywhere, and Nick Sayre battling the monster that could look like anybody in front of them.<p>

But she doubled down on her concentration after a minute, and felt herself slip away, but not move, but she was moving – it was an odd sensation, and not one she could say she liked.

Then, as if she'd closed her eyes and reopened them – though she knew she hadn't – the world around her shifted, and she was standing on the shallow end of a river.

She looked around and saw Lirael standing a few yards away, facing the other direction. "Lirael!" she shouted, and ran to her. The water seemed to pull her in but she stayed, more or less, heading in a straight line.

"Good, you're here," said Lirael. "We need to find the Wraedheren's spirit and bind it. I'll walk you through the binding spell, but you'll have to cast it yourself."

"All right." Tori looked around. "Where is it?"

Lirael pointed into the mist in front of them. "The author of the bestiary said she'd found it in the Fourth Precinct. There are nine all together. She tried to bring it back here, but was forced to bind it then and there. So we'll do that. Take hold of my arm and don't let go."

Tori nodded and clutched Lirael's arm. They strode forward into the water and quickly came upon a thick mist, and what Tori assumed was a waterfall beyond. "The First Gate," Lirael shouted over the roar of the water. She then yelled a spell – no, not a spell, though it sounded like it – no, it was Free Magic, and it felt unbearable to hear.

But the mist parted in front of them, and the waters they revealed as well, with the movement of Lirael's sword and more words. They walked through it and the gap in the water closed behind them.

Lirael stopped as they cleared the First Gate. "The Second Precinct," she told Tori. "Stand behind me and hold onto my waist. The path is tricky and narrow."

Tori did as she was told, and they began to walk.

"What was the Library like when you were there?" asked Tori; she supposed that Death was a different realm, a clean slate where she could ask what she wanted without being reprimanded by her mother, by Kirrith, by Vancelle and all the of the Librarians –

"It was basically the same," the Abhorsen-in-Waiting replied. "It was only last year that I left. We brought people books when they requested them and returned them when they were done with them." She stopped abruptly, turned to the side and resumed walking.

"Did people notice you?"

Lirael hesitated. "I didn't want to be noticed," she said slowly. "I worked very hard at becoming invisible and left on my own."

They turned again. "So you never messed up like I did?"

"No. Hold on," she said. "We're coming up to the Second Gate."

She counted her steps under hear breath, and Tori looked out into the Second Precinct; she could barely see her arm's length in front of her, but she could still make out shapes rising from the water. Hands, reaching for her, trying to pull her down, into the cold, deep, surrounding water and –

The sound of Free Magic brought her back, like the bad-smelling rags they used to wake people who'd fainted. "Tori," Lirael said, "We're at the Second Gate. Hold onto my waist but watch your footing."

"Right."

Lirael stepped onto the Fourth Gate, Tori behind her, and they began to walk in a wide circle around a hole.

"Don't look down," Lirael suggested, but it was too late.

* * *

><p>Nick counted his lucky stars that he'd let Sam drag him down to the yard in the palace where the Royal Guards trained. They'd given him a hard time at first, and some had thrown up when they caught a whiff of the Free Magic he seemed to carry around like a bad cologne; but they'd quickly warmed up to him, and insisted he join in their drills. Thus was the story of how Nick could handle a sword.<p>

He swung at the Wraed-whatever, that's arms had elongated and grown nasty-sharp claws, and pushed it back toward the wall. He was still aching from the fall earlier, and the creature's ambush, but Lirael's spells had restored enough of his strength to keep him going.

The beginning Charter marks she'd had him memorize flashed before his eyes, and he glanced back at the girls. Still covered in frost and ice, he saw; probably still searching for the Wraed's spirit in Death.

Nick turned back to the Clayr-shaped creature – for the record, its garments looked _nothing_ like the white flowing robes of the Clayr – and blocked a swing of its clawed arms. _Back to business_.

* * *

><p>As they reached the bottom of the Second Gate – whirlpool, Tor figured out – Lirael said, "We're going to have to run in a moment, very quickly. Hold on to my clothes with one hand."<p>

She sheathed her sword and they stepped out into the Third Precinct at a run. "Come on!" she shouted.

Tori was not an athletic person, but she was glad to let it be known that she was the fastest short-distance runner in her year gathering, and apparently that ability carried over into Death as well. She stayed level with Lirael as they ran, clutching a loose bit of surcoat, and only looked back once to discover what they were running from: a giant wave, apparently.

Lirael shouted out the Free Magic words to get them through the Third Gate, and the just barely made it through before the wave crashed into the gate, carrying shadowy shapes and more-defined monsters alike into the Fourth Precinct.

Lirael and Tori paused after the Gate to catch their breath, something Tori didn't know one could lose in Death.

"Plenty of Librarians have 'messed up', Tori," said Lirael in between heaves. "Believe me, I spent five years in the Great Library. We've all made mistakes. But part of growing up is learning from those mistakes."

_Not the "your mistakes make you a better person" crap again_, Tori thought; but not even the otherworldliness of Death would let her say that aloud.

Tori noticed a yellowish, slightly-glowing hand in the water behind Lirael. She decided that pointing it out would be an acceptable response. "Is that what we're looking for?" she asked.

Lirael turned and followed her arm. "Yes," she said. "Good eyes. We're going to chase it."

The hand, attached to some kind of fleshy-looking blob, put up a chase, but it was too slow to last very long against the human spirits. They cornered it and Lirael held her sword out with one hand, the tip just touching the surface of the hand, while she unclasped a bell on her bandolier and swung it once, strongly.

The bell rang clearly over the whole of the Precinct, a merry tune that made Tori vaguely want to dance, but its sound somehow concentrated on the golden thing in front of them. The hand and blob froze, and Lirael put away her bell and sheathed her sword.

"Careful now," Lirael said. "You'll have to pull the whole thing out of the water and hold it while you cast the binding spells." She placed her arms above Tori's and said, "On three, we gab and pull."

Tori nodded, and Lirael moved down her arms so they touched Tori's; the girl felt a sudden, cold sensation, and noticed for the first time that one of Lirael's hands was made of gold.

"Three," Lirael said, breaking Tori's thoughts, and together they grabbed the hand and pulled.

The hand reacted immediately, pulling them strongly towards the water. Tori sank to her knees and Lirael followed, and together, slowly, they pulled the blob out.

* * *

><p>In Life, Nick watched the Wraedheren falter, stumble and retreat back into the wall. "Had enough yet?" he taunted.<p>

The creature growled and charged.

* * *

><p>In Death, Tori clutched the wriggling mass in her hands and listened intently to Lirael. "The first marks are simple," she said. "I'll draw the first spell, and you cast it on the spirit. Then the second, the third, and so on. Understand?"<p>

Tori simply nodded.

"Okay." Lirael cast the first marks into the air, and Tori repeated them easily, her mind automatically recognizing the shorthand versions that she'd made of the marks.

They finished the first spell quickly, and watched as the blob writhed painfully.

"Now the second spell," said the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. "This one's a bit more complicated, so watch closely."

* * *

><p>Nick saw the creature falter again, and figured it was time to start.<p>

"Anet, calew, ferhan!" Nick shouted, reciting the three basic marks from memory, and the creature was thrown backwards. Nick raised his sword and began to cast the rest of the first spell to hold the Wraed steady.

* * *

><p>The blob flickered, as if it was disappearing from Death for snippets of time, and twisted in Tori's hands.<p>

"Hold it tight," said Lirael, Remembrancer. "Here's the next spell."

* * *

><p>Nick cast spell after spell onto the creature, and watched it flicker and morph, gradually losing its shape. He recited the last of the first part of marks and held his sword steady.<p>

The Wraedtheren's body solidified for a second, before finally collapsing completely into blobs of goo.

* * *

><p>The blob froze in Tori's hands, and she stopped the spell that she was casting.<p>

"Keep going," Lirael said. "The next mark is –"

The spirit turned to liquid and, as if a bubble, burst and cascaded into the water below. Before Tori or Lirael could react, though, the drops of gold rose again and formed five medium-sized orbs that floated at waist-level.

They stared at the orbs for a long moment, until Tori asked, "Are there any more spells?"

Lirael cleared her throat and said, "Yes, one more, but the orbs must change color first."

"So…we have to wait for Nick Sayre?"

"Yes, we wait for Nick."

* * *

><p>Nick broke the goo into five equal parts using his specially-ensorcelled sword, casting the next series of marks on it as he went. Each gob of goo, instead of reconnecting with the other parts, began to float around his sword.<p>

Slowly, Nick walked out of the chamber and down the hallway. He passed through all four doorways before coming to the other chamber.

The thought suddenly occurred to Nick that, less than a year ago, he would not have foreseen himself casting Charter spells over Free Magic creatures in the depths of a magical Glacier far in the North of the Old Kingdom. He would have imagined himself attending Sunbere, walking through the halls as if he owned the place, chasing girls and drinking far too much alcohol with his friends…

Less than a year ago, Nick hadn't believed in magic, Free and Charter, but less than a year ago the Destroyer had chosen him as an unwilling host for his rebirth, and he had to live with the consequences of that.

The balls of goo still floating around his sword started vibrating, shaking faster and faster, as if they were protesting what he was going to do with them.

"Bloody correct you won't like it," he muttered, and brought his sword to rest in the middle of the broken pentagon.

Nick bent down and lifted the fallen stone with one hand; the moment it became upright, the balls of goo fell away from his sword and rolled towards the stones, one per goo ball.

* * *

><p>The orbs slowly changed color, from glowing gold to a dark, bloody red. "Now, the final spell," Lirael said, and drew it out in the air.<p>

* * *

><p>The stones seemed to absorb the goo, Nick observed, and the lines of Charter marks reconnected, like they did in the other chamber.<p>

Nick spoke the final spell, and the lines between the pentagons tensed, and faded from bright to dull.

Nick sagged back and almost sat down, but he wasn't done. Not yet.

* * *

><p>Exhausted though they were, Lirael and Tori took the Third Gate at a run, passed through the Third and Second Precincts and back through the First Gate, returning to the calm First Precinct in a matter of minutes.<p>

"What now?" Tori asked.

"Now, we step out of the river and return to life," replied the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.

* * *

><p>Nick returned to the other chamber just as Lirael and Tori returned from Death. Tori shook off her icicles and cast a small warming spell while Lirael ended the diamond of protection.<p>

Tori dropped to the floor, a wound in her belly, frozen shut but the frost from Death, open and bleeding again.


	8. Found

Lirael and Nick picked up Tori, still unconscious from the loss of blood, and between the two of them they still had the strength to carry her out to the first hallway. There they set her down without exchanging a word. Lirael cast something like ten spells of protection, locking and warning, while Nick added his own marks to strengthen the spells.

Neither could recall how long it took them to finish, but they would both remember the sigh that the door seemed to make when they cast the last Charter mark.

They stood there, together, silently, for a long moment. Then Lirael turned and picked up Tori again, and Nick joined her. They opened the next four doors with ease, and Nick shoved open the last door, the big door, with his foot.

One of the Rangers – Hanna – on the other side carried Tori back to the crack, where the other Rangers still waited – except that the crack was gone. According to the Rangers, soon before Lirael, Nick, Tori and the Rangers returned the sheet of Charter marks has healed itself and the stones returned to the path. Lirael still insisted on testing the stones out for herself, but only briefly; they felt solid, the sheet of Charter marks was complete, and Lirael was exhausted.

They met Sameth and the rest of the Rangers at the doors to the Great Library, where Lirael's nephew checked the Charter Marks that all of them bore on their foreheads before letting them pass.

That was the last thing Lirael remembered before she fell, finally, asleep.

* * *

><p>Tori awoke after what felt like an eternity. The room was dark, but she could tell without even turning on the lights that she was back in her own bed, in her own room.<p>

She turned her head at figure she saw sitting by her bedside, and her spirit soared. It was Lirael, she had stayed, and she could tell Tori about what she still couldn't recall from the night before, and –

The figure noticed Tori's movement, and threw up Charter marks to light the room.

It was Tomer, not the Abhorsen-in-Waiting.

"Tori, can you tell me your name?"

"Torethele," she replied.

"You mother?"

"Edishi."

"Your father?"

"Yorenel."

"All right, how do you feel?" He leaned over her. "Are you hungry, or –"

As if activated by the word _hungry_, a sudden pain erupted from Tori's stomach, and she raised herself into a sitting position to better press at her abdomen.

"Seven Bells, I'm starving, make it stop…"

Tomer sprung up from his seat, walked to the door and leaned out of the doorframe, where another presumably Clayr stood. "Go get some food for her. Simple, hot and filling."

"Right away," the other Clayr replied, and Tori heard them walk away.

Tomer returned to Tori's bedside and cast three Charter marks onto her arm; the pain in her stomach subsided as they faded onto her skin. "Is that better?"

Tori nodded.

"Oh! I forgot. Lirael left this for you," the Healer said, and handed her a folded piece of paper, sealed with the Abhorsen's key sigil in wax.

Tori took the paper and leaned back onto her pillow, which Tomer had propped up onto her bedframe when she'd sat up.

_Dear Torethele,_ it started,

_Others have undoubtedly already told you this, but we bound the Wraedheren anew and sealed it (properly this time) in its chamber. I don't know how much you remember, so I'll summarize by saying that we went into Death together and bound the creature's spirit while in Life, Nicholas Sayre bound its body in five separate parts. You did an excellent job in the binding._

_We recovered the bodies of the three Librarians that the Wraedheren killed. It had used their blood to try to release its mate, but it was unsuccessful. We held their Farewell the day before I left. They were good Librarians, and good women – I worked with two of them during my time in the Library._

_I don't know if you remember this, but while we were in Death you told me that you'd never heard of a Librarian who had ever released a Free Magic creature into the Library before. I myself have heard of them (it's gossip that circulates unreliably through the Library, and these offending Librarians were few and far between in the history of the Great Library) but I am also guilty of releasing a creature on my own. A Stilken, specifically._

"I have the food!" the Clayr woman from before announced, and walked into the room with a tray. Tori raised her arms so that the woman could lay it on her lap, but instead she held it with one hand and pulled two supporting legs down.

"Here you go," she said, and lay it down so that the legs – actually four legs, two on each side connected by a wooden bar – rested on either side of Tori's legs.

Tori smelled the food, and her stomach grumbled, but she didn't set aside the letter.

_It had lain bound in a room at the end of the tunnel hidden by the gates in the large garden chamber you sketched. I escaped before it could first, though, and I trapped it in the larger chamber until I discovered how to defeat it – for which, by the way, I had to sneak into Chief Librarian Vancelle's living quarters and steal her sword._

_However, my predicament was better than yours: I was older than you are; a Stilken is nowhere near as powerful or hard to bind as a Wraedheren is; and (and I mean this with no insult to you) I am more confident, and more skilled, at Charter magic, than you are. That you were unable to bind the Wraedheren on your own, or prevent its escape, is no fault of your own._

_Please forgive your mother, even though it will take some time for you to understand why. Our mothers often set us on paths that we do not desire, paths that aren't at all easy or clear. But at the end of the day, they mean their best and they try their most for us. I barely remember my mother, and it's perhaps the only thing I truly regret from my childhood._

_Prince Sameth will probably still be here when you wake up. He's directing the rebuilding of the records room and the tunnel below it, and strengthening the spells that protect curious Librarians from what lays on the other side of those many doors._

_Nicholas Sayre has been working with Tomer in the Infirmary over these past few days to develop spells that will better treat and prevent your panic attacks. No one should criticize you for them, either. That they occur to you speaks to neither your character nor your abilities._

_I will return sometime in the next month to finalize the protective spells that surround the Wraedheren's chambers. I will also speak with you again, if you want, during the days that I will be in the Glacier._

_If you ever want to discuss anything with me, you can send me a message via hawk. I've already spoken the Head of the Aviary, so they won't object to sending me your messages. While not out on Abhorsen duties I reside in the palace in Belisaere, and occasionally the House of the Abhorsen downriver on the Ratterlin River. I shall endeavor to respond to any letters you write quickly._

_Yours,_

_Lirael, daughter of Arielle and Terciel_

_Abhorsen-in-Waiting, Remembrancer_

Tori finished the letter, set it down and dug into her food.

* * *

><p>The message came to Lirael at the Abhorsen's House, a week after she and Nick had returned from the Glacier. It had felt like she'd spent an eternity there, but according to Sabriel it had only been five days: Two days while they addressed the problem of the Wraedheren, and three more to recover and help Sam in his endeavor to reconstruct the rooms in the Library damaged by the events surrounding the creature's release.<p>

Nick, upon returning to the Abhorsen's House, and with the boundless energy he seemed to always have, had immediately launched into a correspondence with the Healer Tomer, sending one hawk in particular back and forth from the Glacier. Ellimere, newly returned from Ancelstierre and curious to learn specifics of the trip – Lirael had been closeted with Sabriel to describe the more technical, magical elements of the endeavor – learned that they were discussing how different Charter marks affected different parts of the body.

On this particular day, the hawk had returned with two messages, each addressed with a different hand. Nick collected his usual scroll, labelled as "_Nicholas Sayre, Scientist_", and handed the second paper off to Lirael – "_Abhorsen-in-Waiting and Remembrancer Lirael_".

By just the label, Lirael knew who had written it – well, that and the handwriting, uneven and written by a hand still forming its patterns and habits.

She sat down at the desk in her bedroom and read the letter twice, once quickly and once more slower. She sat in silence for a while after finishing it the second time, thinking intently on how to respond.

Finally, Lirael decided what to write. She fetched a piece of blank paper from a drawer, dipped her quill in ink, and began to write her reply.


End file.
